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{
    "id": 1262253,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1262253/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 338,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Okiya Omtatah",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Those who follow to see where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is headed, you cannot allow another person to develop AI for you. You must develop the AI in a way in which you can control it. We are talking about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). One of the biggest problems with GMOs is that it is not done by our scientists and so, we do not know what they put there. Let us use these centres and they will bring back the glamour on innovation, science and engineering. Right now, engineers are looked down upon because the Chinese will do it. Hardly any engineering firm is being given a serious job in this country. There is no policy even for skills transfer where you can say, okay, the Chinese will do a job but at least 15 per cent should be Kenyans. Even the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the 15 per cent paid upfront was by Kenyan taxpayers but everything is Chinese. The days when we used to hear of Kenyan road contractors doing big roads are long gone when the reverse should be the case. We must find a way of incorporating these incubation centres into our policy and way forward. It reminds me of the story of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a great Kenyan with whom I lived with in the USA, in New Jersey between 1993 and 1994; a great Kenyan, a great host and a good man. When they said that they were going to force African Literature to be taught at the University of Nairobi and he pushed it and succeeded, it generated a lot of debate and opened up room for a lot of creative writing. That is the kind of stuff I am seeing with this Bill; that it will have to open some doors and we must fashion it and even if it is necessary weaponize it in such a manner that it can be used to open these cages that we have been put in, in the neo-colonial state. We must begin producing. We cannot just continue lamenting that we hardly produce what we consume. We hardly produce what we consume we are not innovating; we are not creating. Somebody else is innovating on our behalf. If we are going to consume what we produce, then time has come for us to innovate and the time to innovate is now. The legal and enabling frameworks and the challenges and the clarion call for us is this Bill that we want to see enacted into law; that we want to see protecting Kenyan intellectual property; that we want to see protecting us from innovations from other areas that may be malicious; that may be designed to undermine our security, our state so that, we innovate ourselves. This will ensure that the communication between the President and the Vice President should be done through a telephone network innovated and set up by Kenyans. If it is done by Cisco, who knows what they are listening to? It may be a porous thing that when the President and the Deputy President are talking, the information is leaking. We need to do our things however crude they are. We will perfect them. With those few remarks, I support this Bill congratulate the Mover. I wish it well. Fortunately, the Bill is in the Committee where I sit and we are supporting it. I thank you."
}